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Dr. Walid Phares
Nobel Committee Pulls Oil Plug on Democracy
October 12, 2009

As soon as the Oslo committee issued its Nobel Peace Prize to President Barack Obama, an expected debate raged in America about the legitimacy of such a move so very early in a U.S. presidential term.

The debate soon will espouse the dividing lines between domestic and foreign policy issues and, in a few weeks, will die out under the awe of new unfolding events. What will remain are future policy debates that will refer to one of the world's most prestigious awards as a fact in international relations.

Months and few short years from now, supporters of the "new direction" in U.S. foreign policy as well as academics will frame Obama's Nobel as a consolidation of a new world order, while the media outburst following the granting declaration will be forgotten.

Hence, bypassing the noise of did-he-earn-it-or-not deliberations, let's ask: What is the strategy behind the decision to grant this particular trophy to the sitting American president?

To answer this, we simply can connect the dots between the statements made by the grantor and the grantee. Naturally every American must be proud, and many people around the world are happy for such a decision to honor the White House, although some U.S. leaders wished the committee had granted past presidents such as Bill Clinton for his gigantic efforts in worldwide humanitarian assistance.

The alternative choices are arguable, but this particular gesture isn’t about past achievements, as the committee and the recipient have concurred. It is about supporting a specific policy, which has been enunciated firmly during 2009 and is now being grounded in layers of moral recognition.

This honored policy is to ensure that there will be no more American intervention overseas to provoke democratic change, let alone revolutions, particularly in the so-called “Muslim world.”

The Norwegian Nobel Committee lauded “the change in global mood wrought by Obama's calls and initiatives that have yet to bear fruit: easing American conflicts with Muslim nations.”

In other words, the transnational group of academics, politicians, and multinational corporations involved in the Oslo process of the Nobel Peace Prize clearly has championed the policy of Western restraint from “meddling” in the domestic business of authoritarian regimes.

If previous unilateral interventions meant removing the Taliban and Saddam Hussein from power, “multilateral approaches” mean not to pressure such types of regimes, as long as the latter's action doesn’t disrupt the flow of petrodollars.

The real message of the prize’s grantors is deeper than what it shyly states: You will be honored if you keep your hands off our regimes and ideologies. Thus this recognition is not really about abstract notions or about climate change. It is a message from the authoritarians in the greater Middle East, via their economic partners in the West, to the United States, to quit pushing for democracy and intervening for human rights; as the previous administration said it would, but in fact failed to deliver.

The Nobel Peace Prize Committee is based in Norway, which cooperates with OPEC and often has joint ventures with its members. The latter is obviously controlled by the hard-core authoritarian members of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) and the Arab League. These regimes, regardless of their bilateral disputes (such as Wahabis and Khomeinists), have one common ground: Oppose the rise of democracy, their worst enemy, in their own midst.

U.S. intervention in Yugoslavia, moderating the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, reaching out to dissidents in Myanmar, is fine. But defeating the Taliban and empowering women, helping the reformers in Iran, the Cedars Revolution in Lebanon, or saving Darfur: All of that is forbidden.

The bureaucrats and advisers of the Oslo committee are in partnership with the OPEC-OIC web and thus have offered their “credibility” as part of efforts to block and reverse American support to the underdogs in the region. In their eyes, the Obama administration already delivered significantly in nine months: The war on terror is over, narrative against jihadism is deleted, OIC’s “fatwa” on Defamation of Religion is endorsed, meddling in Iran’s oppression of its citizens rejected, intervention in Darfur stopped, Ghadafi’s terror forgotten, Assad regime’s massacres forgiven, and of course Guantanamo to be closed and U.S. Homeland Security directed against natural disasters instead of urban jihadism.

With such achievements, the “oil jihadi cartel” cannot but make a grand gesture to consolidate the new direction. In return, the powerful grantee accepted the prize as a “call to action,” meaning the course will be stayed. Reaffirming the tenets of his Cairo speech, the president asserted that today’s world is one of “religions” deserving “mutual interests and respect.”

So, between the lines, no future U.S. actions will be in favor of oppressed peoples if they happen to be living in Dar el Islam. The war in Iraq will be ended, regardless of Iran, Syria, and the Jihadists’ future interventions there. And there will be no escalation in the battlefield of Afghanistan, if only somehow the “ruthless adversary would stop threatening the United States.”

Here we go: The “other side” announced its agenda for America, and the latter accepted. Surely it is nice to receive a prominent prize, but it is important to see beyond our own nose. The hope is that the price for such an honor won’t be a human rights catastrophe for the underdogs in the “Muslim world.”


About Dr. Walid Phares
Dr. Walid Phares is the Director of Future Terrorism Project at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies in Washington, a visiting scholar at the European Foundation for Democracy and the author of the War of Ideas. Dr. Phares was one of the architects of UNSCR 1559. He is also a Professor of Middle East Studies at Florida Atlantic University and a contributing expert to FOX News. Dr. Phares teaches Global Strategies at the National Defense University. He serves as the secretary general of the Transatlantic Parliamentary Group on Counter Terrorism. Professor Phares’ is the author of two critical books on the Islamofascist threat to Western Civilization, “Future Jihad: Terrorist Strategies against the West” and "The War of Ideas: Jihadism Against Democracy." Dr. Phares is a co-secretary general of the Trans Atlantic Legislative Group on Counter Terrorism.